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church ordinances

Christian ordinances, in the largest sense, are any institutions, or regulations of Divine appointment, established as means of grace for the good of men, or as acts of worship for the honor of God. In that sense, not only are baptism and the Lord’s Supper ordinances, but preaching, prayer, hearing the Word, fasting, and thanksgiving are also ordinances, since all are of Divine appointment. But, in a narrower sense, it is common to say that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the only ordinances appointed by Christ to be observed by His churches. These are the only emblematic and commemorative rites enjoined upon His disciples, by which they are to be distinguished, and He is to be honored. They are the two symbols and witnesses of the New Covenant, the two monuments of the New Dispensation.

Baptism is the immersion, or dipping, of a candidate in water, on a profession of his faith in Christ and on evidence of regeneration; the baptism to be ministered in, or into, the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. It represents the burial and resurrection of Christ, and in a figure declares the candidate’s death to sin and the world, and his rising to a new life. It also proclaims the washing of regeneration, and professes the candidate’s hope of a resurrection from the dead, through Him into the likeness of whose death he is buried in baptism.